TV Sport
Tilts last week I have been watching sport on TV. Let me say at the outset that I com- mend the whole BBC set-up in this sphere from the benign Peter Dirnmock down to the outside camera teams—with one exception.
But, first of all, Peter Dimmock. Whenever I watch him, whether, as last winter, waiting cheerfully for a connection from Cortina which sometimes never came, or, more recently, telling millions of old ladies, as disinterested in football as myself, about some league match, I have been struck by his buoyant enthusiasm which is so infectious that it must be genuine. And I have decided that, apart from being my (and possibly the old ladies') hero, he must be every schoolboy's hero too—the woolly
uncle who once played for the IZ, the games- master who once golfed for Oxford, with a crowd of small boys hanging on to the hem of his reefer jacket inhaling the smell of his tobacco, like 'a lot of Chinese drug addicts around a pipe of opium.' Or has he never played. cricket or golf? And is he a non- smoker? If so, then, added to his other accomplishments, he must be a superb actor as well And, scattered through the length and breadth of the country under Uncle Peter's panama are a team of scarcely less admirable enthusiasts whose name is legion. From these, may I be allowed to select two, Messrs. Peter O'Sullevan and Clive Graham, who happened to be engaged in a branch of sport to which, last week, I unselfishly devoted three after- noons on my screen and one in person— namely, racing.
This programme is superbly done. Clive Graham's golden voice—if anything connected with a racing tipster can still be golden—takes U.S round the paddock, and Peter O'Sullevan, his colleague on the sports page of the Daily Express, provides the commentary. At this job, with his Celtic vocabulary, his humour and his accuracy, I doubt if he has a rival to touch him in the world. Indeed, the added kick that these two provide to an already enjoyable outing makes one feel rather like a visitor to the National Gallery who, having gone alone to study the pictures, finds himself being con- ducted through the rooms by two Royal Academicians who require no tip.
And now for my criticism, which must be recorded, for perfection spells starvation to a critic. Somewhere in that set-up there is a restless camera operative who photographs the horses going down to the start. Admittedly, he photographs them very well, but to my (and I suspect to Peter O'Sullevan's) fury he follows them into, so to speak, the last quarter. This means that the horse following the one he elects to follow is not seen and, in consequence, its colours are not distinguished by the viewers. So, instead of Peter O'Sullevan's polite 'If we stay here,' let me, with all the concentrated venom of a helpless punter, say, 'STAY THERE YOU !'
WILLIAM DOUGLAS HOME
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